Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency • Hacker News Board

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#111

Post by Mikeb85 » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:20 AM UTC

westoque wrote: post #33

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #14

Bitcoin is not remotely usable as a currency now. The fees are incredible, the confirmation times ridiculous. We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc. immediately. Asking the current 1 mb blocksize version of Bitcoin to be a currency is like Goldman Sachs writing a report saying they want to run their website on Intel 486 processors. They mention Zimbabwe moving to it as an alte…

Not sure “banking the unbanked” is really the goal of Bitcoin. Think instead because of it’s scarcity, Bitcoin could be used to back currencies. Much like the gold standard before. Transaction fees in this scenario (even with it’s high transaction fees for us normies) would be considered negligible when moving large amounts of money. In this scenario, we can even have other cryptos which are better for daily use be b…

Only 2 things can back currency: hard assets/commodities, and a guarantor (like a government). Right now Bitcoin is more like a security as all its worth is speculative and based on trading, it's not backed by anything tangible.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#112

Post by bobwaycott » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:23 AM UTC

dsacco wrote: post #97

wallace_f wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's consistent with what people mean when they say 'gold has intrinsic value.' All they are saying is it 'has some value that is not one of the three functions of money.' Does anyone know what the above logical fallacy would be named? I see this kind of argumentation a lot: where one refutes an argument which has not been made.

It’s an abuse of definitional scope. The commenter is not arguing against a point that has not been made (that would be a strawman); instead, they’re arguing against the applicability of terminology in an argument that was made, but by using an incorrect or alternate definition for the terminology. In this specific instance, the commenter is using a non-standard definition of “intrinsic value” to argue that gold has…

As I stated in my other reply to you, I am very well aware “intrinsic value” is a specific economic term. I was speaking exactly to that term—what it means, what it implies—and disputing the logical sense of the term itself.

You have twice now in your comments made a host of assumptions about my intentions and the coherence, relevance, and applicability of my statement. You’re ascribing an awful lot of impossible-to-possess knowledge of my mental processes here.

The notion that gold has intrinsic value—despite the longstanding place that notion has remained in social and economic thought for quite some time—is inconsistent with reality. There is no damage done to gold, its value, its physical properties, or economics itself to point out this inconsistency. We’d be better served to use terms that reflect and remain consistent with reality. And when it comes to economic value, the harsh reality we ought to always keep in mind is that no value is intrinsic—despite how frequently it feels (or even seems sensible to believe) otherwise.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#113

Post by EricDeb » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:31 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #106

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #14

Bitcoin is not remotely usable as a currency now. The fees are incredible, the confirmation times ridiculous. We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc. immediately. Asking the current 1 mb blocksize version of Bitcoin to be a currency is like Goldman Sachs writing a report saying they want to run their website on Intel 486 processors. They mention Zimbabwe moving to it as an alte…

>We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc. All other chains will face the same cost-of-scaling problem as Bitcoin as they grow. No one has yet developed a public consensus mechanism proven to provide the same security as PoW with the requisite order of magnitude higher scalability and lower costs. Unless some technological breakthroughs are made on that subject, they'll all hit t…

Where does RaiBlocks fit in here? It moved up to top 20 in market cap due to being decentralized, instant, feeless, and scalable. However it still faces the issue of being too volatile for everyday use.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#114

Post by cornedor » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:33 AM UTC

wereHamster wrote: post #91

mrb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there is a great way to scale on-chain: UTXO Set Commitment allows nodes to simply discard unnecessary blockchain data (in a way not too dissimilar to classic "pruning"). The data set maintained by nodes would basically grow linearly with the UTXO Set instead of the number of txns. Eg. right now it would cut 150GB down to 3GB. Sadly it seems under-researched.

utxo set is one issue with large number of transactions. The far bigger is the big block size you would need for visa-level transaction numbers (1GB / 10min was mentioned). And it's not only an issue for end-users (can't run a bitcoin client on your phone, you'd burn through your data within a couple days), but also for miners. They'd be far more likely to mine on top of an old block, leading to stale blocks. There w…

ISP’s have to move all that bandwidth as well. Netflix has servers on ISP level where they pay for i’d imagine, I don’t think that there is a way to do that with Bitcoin’s data.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#115

Post by danifeld » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

More and bigger sharks are coming into this space. Which is perfect.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#116

Post by westoque » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:42 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #87

DSingularity wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it needs to have value everyone agrees on.

But we don't all agree on the price of bitcoin and I don't see why we would just because it's rare.

I don’t think it’s just the rarity. It’s also trustless, secure and easy to transfer. For ex, with gold, you’d have to carry blocks of it to move it around. And even then, you’d still don’t exactly trust it’s source 100% unlike bitcoin, where everything is in the ledger.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#117

Post by root_axis » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #57

twblalock wrote: post #8

The article makes the point that Bitcoin could be viable in many countries where people already use foreign currencies because they don't trust their domestic currency. That's one of the few arguments for cryptocurrency that I find convincing, but I think it's a stronger argument for cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. The Bitcoin transaction fees are so high right now that it doesn't make sense to use it for small…

I am struggling to see how cryptocurrencies would have any tangible advantage over US Dollars in developing nations. Remember that in many of these countries, most people don't have smart phones, and there's a lot of people who don't even have phones. Electricity and internet connections are intermittent at best. Good luck convincing Cambodian street hawkers that your magic internet money is better than a good old fa…

Indeed. It also requires considerable levels of technical literacy to use, maintain, and properly secure blockchain tokens, and even with all that people regularly have their bitcoins stolen or irreparably lost.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#118

Post by paulmd » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

beaner wrote: post #25

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently, to send money between two people in the US, it takes 3 business days, typically costs some transaction fee, and is limited to the range of the border. It is slow, expensive, and local. I received funds via Fedwire today. It took about five minutes. Both sides’ banks waived fees on account of our account balances.

It's true that some banking systems are improving in terms of speed. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's happening now that crypto has been around for 8 years, and is increasing in size. Most immediate US-based sends and receives are virtual, based on 2nd-layer systems like Venmo and PayPal, not actually moving money but updating the numbers in your account before funds land. Unfortunately for the Fed, speed a…

> Most immediate US-based sends and receives are virtual, based on 2nd-layer systems like Venmo and PayPal, not actually moving money but updating the numbers in your account before funds land.

This is really only the case in the US. Most of the rest of the world can have bank transfers that are cleared in seconds, for free. The US is just way behind on this, it's a solved problem for Europeans.

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#119

Post by dmichulke » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 7:04 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #111

westoque wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure “banking the unbanked” is really the goal of Bitcoin. Think instead because of it’s scarcity, Bitcoin could be used to back currencies. Much like the gold standard before. Transaction fees in this scenario (even with it’s high transaction fees for us normies) would be considered negligible when moving large amounts of money. In this scenario, we can even have other cryptos which are better for daily use be b…

Only 2 things can back currency: hard assets/commodities, and a guarantor (like a government). Right now Bitcoin is more like a security as all its worth is speculative and based on trading, it's not backed by anything tangible.

Who guaranteed gold before 68?

Does or did that make Gold a currency?

Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency

#120

Post by paulmd » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 7:09 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #2

More than a little disturbing. They talk about helping developing economies, but what you can bet this means is that they'll be screwing over those people some way or another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#2007%E2%80%93200... http://fortune.com/2016/04/11/goldman-sachs-doj-settlement/ This is the end game of cryptocurrencies; not worldwide financial liberation but the same massive financial institutions…

The problem in hyperinflationary situations isn't lack of access to hard currency, it is usually readily available on the black market. The problem is the lack of affordability of hard currency. How many US dollars do I get for this piece of hyperinflating funny money? Probably not many.

Bitcoin is really no different from transacting in US dollars or any other hard currency, in fact it's arguably worse in pretty much every way. And you won't be able to get Bitcoins at affordable funny-money prices any more than you can get dollars.

So when you hear things like "Zimbabwe should switch to Bitcoin", just mentally replace that advice with "Zimbabwe should switch to USD" and imagine how that would play out. Harsh austerity measures, deregulation, and privatization to get a few measly millions of World Bank loans that will be gone in no time. Any country that finds themselves in a position where they can't issue their own currency is going to have a real hard time of it.

So just think "shock doctrine, but with Bitcoin".